Brave New World Seminar Pre-Write:

I believe the main message of Brave New World is that we shouldn’t turn into a society like theirs. Living in a controlled society will take away your freedom and hide things from you to have stability. They took away science, art, and true god. They made you think that being young and beautiful is better, that dying is a good thing because there is no afterlife. Being in a controlled society wouldn’t allow to be your own individual, you would be just like everyone else.

In Brave New World they are conditioned to believe they are happy and I think we as people may not be conditioned, but are told by our parents and peers we are happy. You take North Korea for an example, They are separated that they think were they live is amazing and that everything is fine and they are happy, but they haven’t even seen the rest of the world, they have been separated from the world. Also, I think sometimes people just faking being happy because they want to fit in and don’t want to be the sad kid. They hide their real feelings.

I think when john says that he is meaning that people have to emotional pay for things, instead of material things. In the society they have no real feelings and think that they are happy, so they never cry. They don’t pay for what they have done or what they do/feel, when they do things it's a good thing because they are conditioned to believe that what they do is good not bad and they also don’t do anything that would cost them to feel emotion because of the conditioning. Sick of there not being any emotion and feelings.

Beauty:50% Comfort:30% Truth:20%

I think we mainly focus on beauty in our society because in our world you have to look this certain way to fit in. Now in world we have made it so that people can still fit in with the beauty norms through plastic surgery and different makeups. I think we don’t focus on truth so much because there is so many people that lie to hide a secret and protect others, which sorta happens in Brave New World they don’t tell the people the truth because they want to protect stability. Comfort is a thing that not everyone can get or receive, so we don’t focus it on it as much. For the people that can receive comfort it is really important and can usually make people feel safe.​

Brave New World Seminar Reflection:

Reaction:During our seminar Acacia stated that you have to go through something hard before you can receive happiness. I think that that is totally true, it's just like the saying you have to go through dark before you can get the light. You can’t just be happy all the time, there is always going to be hard times in life. If you're happy all the time like in Brave New world where they are conditioned to believe they are happy all the time, you lose sight of what real happiness is. In the book John talks about fake happiness, I think that once you have been happy all the time, it isn’t true happiness. You just think you're happy and live the part. You can’t just be happy all the time, you need the emotions and sad times.Self-Evaluation:For me this book got challenging at points and i wasn’t sure how well I would do in the seminar, but after the seminar I felt really good about how I did.. One area I definitely feel I did good in is my comunication. I was able to get my opinions, thoughts, and Ideas.While also listening to what other people had to say. During the seminar we got to a point where we were talking about our world and Brave New World world. During that part of the seminar I ended up talking about I feel our world could eventually turn into there world with our technology. If we keep going on this same track of creating new technology, we could come to a point where we don’t need intercourse to have a baby and that they have already come with so many ways of creating the perfect baby through creating their own genetics.Key-Take Away:There a lot of things I feel I will take away from Brave New World and the seminar. One of things I will take away is that we need emotions. Having emotions gives us our opinions about topics, if we only have one emotion we really one see that topic through one lens. With many emotions, it allows you to see different perspectives and makes you feel the truth. I think from now on I won’t take my emotions and happiness for granted because of what I read in Brave New World. Another thing I’m going to take away is when John killed himself at the end because he was overwhelmed with the new society and all he wanted is to be come clean of all the bad things that he had done. When he came to London the society was so different from where he came from and he was different from everyone else. The last thing, I will take away is if our technology keeps growing we could end up like the society in Brave New World.

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Mexican Whiteboy Seminar Pre-write:

1.What mask’s do Danny and Uno have to wear?Definitely in the book Uno’s mask is to be tough for his dad, step-dad, and friends, so he won’t feel like a baby in the eyes of his step dad and friends.Under the mask I feel he is really caring about Danny, in the book whenever Danny’s having trouble he tries to ask what's happening and help him. For example, when danny was having trouble pitching, Uno took him to the train tracks, to sorta help Danny get his mind set and cleared, so the next time they pitched Danny would have the feeling of the train in his head to help with the straight fastballs. Moving on to Danny’s mask is shyness. Everybody thinks that Danny is super shy but in reality he just isn’t good at sharing his opinion around people he doesn’t really know. At the end of the book the boys from the baseball team. the team mates of kyle were all really surprised when Danny said something. So Danny is known for being the quiet guy, that's his mask. Since he’s shy and doesn’t speak up, he has alot built up inside of him that no one really knows besides family. His dad's in jail and he jabs his finger nails into his skin as a coping mechanism. (The Person behind the mask)

2.Use the concepts of socialization to explain the book “Mexican Whiteboy”To start off I guess that this book is sorta showing stereotypes Mexicans have received. Just with they aren’t smart and don’t ever go on to college. Mexican Whiteboy shows that kids are influenced by family. When there parents do something bad and act out or do something illegal, there kids are most likely going to follow in their footsteps. Connecting education to this, is that most parents don’t go to college and when the kids find that out they think they don’t need to go to college. Mexican WhiteBoy shows how targets and agents. When Danny and Uno went to hustle Kyle, Kyle being the agent and Danny and uno being the Target, Kyle thought he was better then them and all of Kyle's friends were laughing at Danny and uno because they didn’t think they could beat Kyle. Partly because Kyle Is a good batter but also because Danny and Unio are Mexican. This goes along with stereotypes people think that Mexicans aren’t good at sports.

3. What new insights did you gain about race and economic class in reading this book?I learned that Mexicans don’t get the same opportunities because they either can’t afford it or because what race there are. Uno had to get money to go live with his dad because they were not rich. Uno had to work to get his money and now that he has money he will still have to do labor to live with his. If any of us were going to live with our actual father, if our parents were divorced, we wouldn’t have to raise money we would just go live with them. White people are known for being the smart people that get a good education, while the Mexicans and colored are known for doing illegal things because of their color. I made me realize, that we can just judge by appearance, that there is a bigger meaning then just how they come off. Like Danny and Uno they come off different than who they actually are.

Mexican Whiteboy Seminar Reflection:

Reaction: In the Seminar when Sara asked What mask does Danny have. Autumn made a really comment, “It all depends on the environment you’re in.” I agree with what Autumn said because Danny would put on this mask in Nation City that he was tough, yet shy, and knew what others were talking about to be popular. One example, would be when Danny was in the stands at the stickball game, the girls started laughing, so Danny laughed with them and didn’t really know why they were laughing. Another example, is when Danny would write to his dad he would create a mask for himself that he tough, “Just today I knocked some kid out.” This isn’t true at all Danny was saying that he fought back, but he didn’t actually fight back. Danny was to scared to fight Uno. He was trying to fit in with the group so he wouldn’t feel left out, so he put on this mask of being popular. The mask that he would wear when he was living with his mom is that he was shy and didn’t really want to pop out, in baseball or school because he was Mexican. Danny didn’t want anyone to really notice that he was mixed colored, so he put this mask on of being shy.Connections:One thing that we discussed in the seminar was how Mexicans don’t get the same opportunities of going to college because none of their parents really went to college, so the kids don’t think they need to go to college. For us going to college is necessary because our parents went to college and we talk about it more often. In a movie that I watched in school last year about Mexicans, there was this girl in a family that wanted to go to college and would have been the first one to go to college in her family, but she ended up not going because she felt once she got there, she wouldn’t know what to do because her parents can’t really guide her and help her. This just shows that when people are socialized to believe that they don’t need to go to college because there parent’s didn’t go, can affect what they do in later life. Either end up not going to college or doing something illegal.Self-evaluation:I feel over all I did well in the seminar. One area I feel I definitely did well in is Communication because I spoke my opinion and I actively listen to others and what they had to say. During the seminar I shared my opinion on why we ponder over the question of who we are throughout our life, “Over time who we are changes so then it also changes how we feel about the groups we fit in before.” I feel this is a really good example of what I believe in why we ponder the question of who we are throughout our life. In the seminar I also learned what areas I need to work on. I feel I need to work on having hard evidence and finding quotes that relate to question. I had good points, but I didn’t really have evidence to back my point up. Also, I could work on sharing personal experiences that relate to the context in the seminar.Most Beautiful Line: In the book there was one line that really stood out to me, “It never stops, you know. Even when you get old like your mom and your dad. You’re still trying to figure out who the heck you are.” This quote from the book just made me realize that even when you're older it never ends, you still are trying to figure who you are to fit into different groups. Danny’s mom wasn’t sure if she fit into the poor group, so she went to San Francisco to live in the rich life/group with her rich boyfriend. She finds that it isn’t who she is to be perfect, so she goes back to being in the poor group. Even parents don’t know where they belong, they learn more and more about themselves which helps them figure out where they fit. ​

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